PG Cert Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

Choose Kingston’s Learning and Teaching in Higher Education PgCert

If you wish to learn how to teach in active and involving ways, but are professionally busy or unable to come to London for a residential course, then this course could be for you.

Designed for those already employed by institutions that deliver higher or further education courses, this course is specifically aimed at those who want to teach, and:

• have fewer than three years’ full-time teaching experience; or
• are involved in supporting learning (such as librarians, learning technologists, academic developers, skills advisers, technicians).

This course would also benefit anyone in these roles who wishes to refresh their knowledge of learning and teaching.

Key features

• This course promotes learning and teaching that actively involves students, believing active learning to be essential to today’s society. This course encourages forms of teaching that encourage students to take central stage in their learning.
• The course is designed and run by academics who are experts and active researchers, both in higher education studies and online learning.
• The course will help you think about teaching in active ways – involving your students and encouraging them to reflect, independently and with others.
• You will experience active learning and study different teaching methods, learning ways to facilitate active learning and involve your students fully and responsibly.
• You will be encouraged to think about educational issues in fruitful and inquisitive ways, both on your own and in collaboration with other students.
• You will examine educational practices such as lecturing, small group work, assessment and feedback.
• You will be encouraged to reflect on your own experience as a learner to enhance your practice as a teacher. Throughout the course, we help you reflect, ask (yourself and others), find solutions, share and compare thoughts.
• Kingston University is a large London-based institution which prides itself on its innovative approaches to teaching and a number of specialisms, including education studies.

Both your tutor and your local mentor will offer you help and support. Mentors are experienced academics in the higher education institute in which you undertake your teaching. Your mentor will:

• help you understand the principles of active learning and what they means in terms of teaching;
• provide advice and guidance on general aspects of teaching in your subject area, helping you embed general teaching principles;
• support and manage all aspects of teaching observation (including relevant documentation)  integrated into the course;
• offer general support as a colleague, including regular meetings; and
• act as link with the course tutors.

What will you study?

The course comprises two modules (each 12 weeks long) that take you from issues of classroom teaching to wider ones of curriculum design. Within each module, you will critically examine, reflect upon and develop your professional practice in teaching and supporting learning in higher and further education.

In the first module, Active Learning in Teaching Practice, you will focus on how students learn and what can be done to help them do this effectively and efficiently. You will examine your practice in relation to a range of ideas and practice drawn from different subject disciplines and scholarship in the field of learning and teaching.

The second module is Active Learning in Curriculum Design. You will consider active learning in terms of curriculum design and development, assessment and feedback, quality assurance and enhancement. In particular, you will critically explore the influence of external factors eg Higher Education Academy, Quality Assurance Agency, on your practice.

Given the interactive nature of the course, it is important that, from the beginning, you see the teachers on the course as not the only source of knowledge – books, the internet, your colleagues and mentor will all contribute to your learning. Your success on the course will be achieved by making full use of all these resources and integrating them in ways which show that your teaching is aligned with the principles of active learning.